Wedding weekend and Casey's birthday!

Hello all! SO I have a ton to update and I've waited almost a week to do so, so I guess I should get to it. I didn't have many pictures, unfortunately, but I stole some from Daniel & Brian from and Ben & Amanda's wedding last weekend so I will include some of them as well!

A few hours before the wedding, I found out that my friend Brian, who I grew up with and hadn't seen since right before we moved to South Carolina 6 years ago, would be there as well. Just walking up to the country club where the wedding was held was exciting for me because I got to see Kyle's parents, and 'little' brother Chris (who is now 22, which absolutely blows my mind). I hadn't seen his family in years, so it was great to get to catch up with them as well.
The wedding was an absolute blast. The outdoor ceremony was pretty short- maybe 25 minutes- and then everyone went inside to enjoy dinner, drinks (good ole H₂O for me!) and dancing. Getting to see so many people I hadn't seen in years- a few I hadn't seen in 5-6 years- made it even better. One of the best things about being at this event, besides seeing my friend and his long-time girlfriend get hitched, was getting to see my best friends on Earth. I can't tell you how great it felt to see people again, some after a long period of time without much or any contact, and have it feel like I had just seen them yesterday. True friends always feel like home to me. It has been a long time since I've laughed as hard as I did last weekend. Sitting at dinner with Brian, his fiance Gale, Sara, Lindsey, and Casey was one of the highlights of my weekend. Having this much fun in one weekend makes me wonder how our 10 year THS reunion next year could ever top that.

Other than the wedding, we got to see quite a bit of Casey's side of the family this weekend, which was something we haven't gotten to do in awhile. Valerie recently moved to Kansas City, so we got to go visit her on Saturday afternoon and see her new apartment. We went to lunch, which was the first time in awhile that Casey's immediate family was all together, especially to help celebrate his birthday. Having everyone together is rare now that Val doesn't live at home and Les is a Senior in high school.

We also got to go visit Casey's Uncle Lloyd & Aunt Jeanie in Lawrence on Sunday morning. It was nice catching up with them, as well as Casey's cousins Pam and Lisa. Lisa just started college at KU and has had some issues with her roommate, so it was nice to talk to her about it and encourage her to try and move out. I had a similar situation when I first went to KSU... my first roommate was a total weirdo... but moving out a month later was the best decision I could have made. Then I went potluck the next year and got Chelsea, which worked out better than I could have ever hoped for! *(PS... Chelsea, your blog always inspires me to write, so I always read it right before I make a new entry.) :)

After visiting Lloyd, Jeanie, and their family, we went home and visited my mom in the hospital. She was admitted on Friday night. At first everyone thought she had the flu, but it turned out that blood was leaking somewhere in her body and her hemoglobin levels were extremely low. She got a blood transfusion, which seemed to do the trick. We got there just in time to meet one of her doctors and hear what his thoughts were about why she was there. Shortly after that, she was released from the hospital, so I'm glad we got to be there for that. I'm also glad that 1) it was not the flu, and 2) she's home now, and feeling a lot better.

Monday, De went to Kansas City to help Valerie unpack, and Casey stayed home in Topeka to help his dad with their deck. I went out with Leslie and took some more Senior pictures. I really have a lot of work to do and wish I was better at posing my subject, but I think these turned out well. We went to a farm close to the Hetricks house, and spent probably 1.5 hours walking around taking pictures. I have yet to edit them and will probably work on that after I get done writing this novel.

We left KC early Monday evening. Picked up Charley from the vet early Tuesday morning (they closed early Monday for the holiday, so we had to leave him there an extra night... boo!!) Fast forward to Wednesday, Casey's 29th birthday. I ended up making my first layer cake, which turned out well! Casey took half of it to work with him yesterday, and apparently people gobbled it up. He wanted to keep his birthday low-key this year, so when he got home from work Wednesday night, I gave him his presents, and we went out to dinner. In all he seemed to really enjoy everything. :)

Now it's Friday, and I've got plenty to do around here. This is what I get for waiting so long to blog... I could have split all of this up into probably 2 or 3 blog entries at this point. Oh well, hopefully I haven't lost all of you due to the rambling. Now it's time to add pictures to this massively long entry. Enjoy!

-Ash